It happens again, every day it seems, the little crossroads of life, the little decisions that determine whether you run the yellow light, or whether you spit in the morning. Those little crossroads do not mark transcendence; they’re just a playful sojourn, mind games of the “what if” that never amount to anything, except maybe a tired screenplay for a movie, or a science fiction show.
Sometimes, there is a major crossroad, those that fork out life unto a new rail. We know them; we’ve lived them, precisely this year. Yes, we’ve lived them.
I had another one last night.
Life fills you with scars. The physical ones are less parsimonious, although sometimes they do retain the incandescence about them, a halo of memory that astounds when one peeks at the wound and finds the calloused skin. The worse scars are those of the psyche, for they rear their head up at unconventional times, even when we‘re not looking, or when we’re actually trying to excise them. But this is impossible. There is no decision there.
But the fork in the road establishes a decision. I’ve reached this fork, this particular fork, many times, especially this last year. How many times do you face the same crossroad before finally deciding that the road not taken before should be the one taken this time? Some learn fast, and after the second or third time, they do it. Others are more methodical, or incongruous, or hesitant, or simply play the odds, and keep taking the same road, thinking that a moving target is harder to hit. And then, surrounding all the deliberations that accompany the fork in the road, something happens that makes you decide the other way.
That’s the scar. A wound so deep, it leaves behind its shadow; such a formidable scar is too obvious, like a burn to the eyebrows, or a deep crevice from a sword into your chest.
That’s where I am, about to take the other road.
A wound was made last night. This time, it won’t heal…
